5 Feb 2019

The Fall of the Media Temple
The media sold off its own temple last week and no one noticed. A decade ago, a 643,000 square foot shrine to the media went up off the Washington Mall. The media funded organization behind it boasted that its Great Hall of News atrium was taller than the Sistine Chapel. The thousands of artifacts included a 3,262 year old cuneiform brick from ancient Sumeria and a 2,756 year old statue of the Egyptian god Thoth, the mythical inventor of writing, worshiped by the media. Last week, the $450 million temple constructed by the media to worship itself was sold off for $372 million to Johns Hopkins. There’s no word on whether they threw in the statue of their fallen god. And nobody was buying the Newseum’s t-shirts of Thoth; the dead idol of a dying industry.

Trump Nominations Begin to Remake the Liberal 9th Circuit
Trump announced three nominations this week to the San Francisco-based appeals court, which covers California, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and the eastern part of Washington state. Earlier this month, the president renominated two other judges for the 9th Circuit. For the 9th Circuit, Trump announced his intent Wednesday to nominate Daniel A. Bress, 39, a lawyer with the firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP; Daniel P. Collins, a former associate deputy U.S. attorney general who now is in private practice; and Kenneth Kiyul Lee, 44, a former associate counsel to President George W. Bush, also now in private practice. All three men are from California.

Russians fight U.S. in Syria, then hide their losses
About 100 Russian military contractors were killed in the Deir al-Zor battle, sources have said. The Russian foreign ministry has said that only a handful of Russian citizens were killed there and dismissed reports of heavy losses.

Senior Israeli leaders pledge: 2 million Jews in the West Bank – report
Dozens of senior ministers and Knesset members from Likud and other right-of-center parties overnight signed a declaration to support the “Nahal” movement, which promotes a settlement plan from the time of former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, according to a report published Tuesday by Israeli press. The movement’s goal: Two million settlers living in the West Bank.

Australia floods: Two found dead as waters grip Townsville
Two men have died in floodwaters that have forced large-scale evacuations in the Australian city of Townsville. The pair’s bodies were found near a park on Tuesday, following what has been described as a “once in a century” flood in the northern Queensland city. Police did not confirm whether the victims were two men, aged 21 and 23, whose disappearances on Monday had led to the discovery of the bodies.

Top cleric urges Middle East’s Muslims to ’embrace’ Christians
The head of Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning has urged the Middle East’s Muslims to “embrace” local Christians. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar in Egypt, told an interfaith meeting in Abu Dhabi attended by Pope Francis that Christians were “our companions”. He also called on Muslims in the West to integrate into their communities while maintaining their identities.

Obesity-related cancers rising fastest among millennials, study finds
Mirroring the decades-long increase in obesity rates in the U.S., cancers that are thought to be driven at least in part by excess weight are also on the rise among people under age 50, a new study suggests. Rates for six of 12 cancers related to obesity have been increasing in successive generations of young adults, with the sharpest increases in the youngest age groups…

Russian Navy has new weapon that makes targets hallucinate, vomit: report
The Russian Navy reportedly has a new weapon that can disrupt the eyesight of targets as well as make them hallucinate and vomit. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that a Russian military contractor has installed the weapon on two Russian warships. The weapon fires a beam similar to a strobe light that affects the target’s eyesight, making it more difficult for them to aim at night.

‘Rain Tax’ Likely To Become Reality In New Jersey
New Jersey is one of the highest taxed states in the country. Now, residents and businesses could be taxed extra … when it rains…A new bill calls for the creation of local or regional storm water utilities, giving local counties and municipalities the power to collect a tax from properties with large paved surfaces such as parking lots, CBS2’s Meg Baker reported.

Fears ‘deadliest ever’ Ebola will infect MILLIONS as disease rapidly spreads
The group of medics put their names to a letter in the Lancet yesterday calling for “high-level political, financial, and technical support to address the Ebola outbreak that started last May” in the Congo. The current outbreak – first declared just six months ago – is already the world’s second-biggest having killed nearly 1,000 since it began.

Anxiety on rise among the young in social media age
The number of young people in the UK who say they do not believe that life is worth living has doubled in the last decade, amid a sense of overwhelming pressure from social media which is driving feelings of inadequacy, new research suggests. In 2009, only 9% of 16-25-year-olds disagreed with the statement that “life is really worth living”, but that has now risen to 18%.

Russia plans new missile systems to counter U.S. by 2021
Russia will race to develop two new land-based missile launch systems before 2021 to respond to Washington’s planned exit from a landmark nuclear arms control pact, it said on Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin said at the weekend that Russia had suspended the Cold War-era Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which bans both nations from stationing short- and intermediate-range land-based missiles in Europe.

Ocasio-Cortez Invites Anti-Kavanaugh Soros Operative To SOTU
The Soros-funded activist who harassed former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) in an elevator amid the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fiasco will attend President Trump’s State of the Union address as a guest of socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Baby body parts in ‘humanized mice’ experiments
The American Center for Law and Justice has submitted to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease a Freedom of Information Act a request for documentation of its “humanized mice” program, which uses the body parts of aborted babies for “HIV therapeutics development.”

GM Starts Laying Off Thousands of American Workers
Executives at General Motors (GM) have started laying off American workers in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, Georgia, and Texas, while the multinational corporation is reportedly expanding production in China and Mexico.